San Diego May Be Classy, But Does It Need a Public Law School?

The University of California system has a bunch of law schools. Five, by our count (Berkeley, UCLA, Hastings, Davis, Irvine).

Does it need a sixth?

One could be on its way.

The University of California San Diego (Go Tritons!) has reportedly revived a decades-old plan to establish a law school through a partnership with San Diego-based California Western School of Law. Click here for the story, from the San Diego Union Tribune. Click here for an editorial from the paper on Sunday, weighing the pros and cons of such a move.

Details are a bit sketchy, largely because discussions between the two schools are preliminary. But according to the report, the arrangement could range from a strengthened affiliation between the downtown San Diego private law school and the La Jolla public university to a full merger.

According to the Union-Tribune story, UCSD has off and on aspired to build a law school for decades. A similar proposal for a merger between California Western and UCSD in the early 1980s was rejected by UC administrators, who concluded it was not needed.

Among the models being considered for UCSD and California Western are the law schools at Michigan State University and Pennsylvania State University.

In other new-law-school news, we’re just a week away from a pivotal vote on whether to create the first public law school in Massachusetts. Under the proposal, the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth would acquire the now private Southern New England School of Law. Click here for a Boston Globe story on the pre-vote jockeying.

Clarification: As a reader pointed out, the initial version of this post contained paragraphs from the San Diego Union-Tribune story that were not properly attributed as such. In fact, they were never intended to be part of this blog post and have been deleted. We regret the mistake.

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The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

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